Reputation Leaders,Quality Laggards: Incentive Structure in Markets with Both Private and Collective Reputations

A theoretical model is developed to illustrate the economic incentives to invest in quality in markets with a dual reputation structure: private (firm reputation) and collective (regional reputation). Numerical dynamic programming techniques are then used to simulate firms’ strategic behaviour, and competitive outcomes are compared to the optimal investment of a regional planner. Market and product characteristics inducing asymmetric and/or sub‐optimal investment strategies, potentially destabilising for the region, are investigated.     

Materiality in integrated and sustainability reporting: A paradigm shift?

This paper investigates the implementation of integrated reporting (IR) by Generali, one of the most important listed companies in Italy. The research questions we aim at answering are the following: Is the IR approach to materiality inherently different from the sustainability reporting (SR) approach? Does IR lead to the identification of different material topics than does SR? On the one hand, institutional theory suggests that IR and SR material topics are going to be significantly different because IR is mainly driven by a market logic, whereas SR is inspired by a stakeholder logic. On the other hand, organizational change theory predicts there will be some resistance to change by the organization, therefore leading to IR and SR topics being similar. In order to answer our research questions, we implement two empirical analyses. First, we propose and develop an innovative methodological approach on the basis of content analysis, which allows measuring the materiality of different issues under the IR approach. Second, we rely on evidence obtained through interviews, which suggests that IR and SR approaches to materiality are inherently different.     

Participation in risky asset markets and propensity for financial planning: a missing link?

This study examines whether the association between financial literacy and participation in risky asset markets is robust to variation on a more innate level: the propensity for financial planning. I find that individuals’ propensity for financial planning is strongly positively related to stock market participation as well as membership in a voluntary workplace retirement savings scheme. This result holds when controlling for financial literacy and a range of demographic and control variables in a multivariate regression setting. Importantly, the positive association between financial literacy and risky asset market participation also persists, suggesting that these two variables operate through separate channels.     

民办高校国贸专业“双师型”教师队伍建设探讨

民办高校旨在培养以社会需求为导向的高素质应用型人才,具备专业理论知识和丰富实践经验的"双师型"教师是实现其培养目标的必然要求,也是提高教育教学质量的关键。外贸行业是应用性很强的行业,要求国贸专业毕业生具备一定的进出口业务操作能力,民办高校国际贸易专业应制订切实可行的措施,采取必要的手段和方法,加强"双师型"教师队伍的建设。     

Fraternal twins—Should investors be careful?*

After analyzing portfolio differences between separate account-mutual fund twins, we find that dissimilar “fraternal twins” show significantly lower joint performance than “identical twins.” This finding is consistent with fraternal twins competing for the limited attention of a manager while identical twins mutually profit. Furthermore, the effect is stronger for separate accounts, which is probably due to investors having the opportunity to influence managers’ investment decisions according to their preferences. These results are independent of differences in known investment constraints. However, the findings may be driven by separate account investors’ preferences for higher liquidity and lower idiosyncratic risk.     

Eating With Your Eyes: How Packaging Visual Cues Affect Content Estimation and Self-control in Virtue and Vice Food

This research investigates the effects of visual cues depicted on food packaging on consumers’ estimates of the contained amount and consumers’ self-control intentions. Results from two experiments show that the number of product units shown on the package drives perceptions and behavioral intentions in food categories where product size tends to be quite standardized, supporting the “see more, expect more” effect reported by previous literature, but adding a “see virtue, expect more” effect triggered by product type. Instead, when product size tends to vary across manufacturers, picture size has a greater effect on consumers’ content estimations and self-control intention than the number of product units depicted, suggesting the existence of a “see small, expect more” effect according to which consumers estimate larger content when the package portrays smaller product units. Results stimulate awareness of the effects that can be conveyed by images on packaging, on content estimates and consumer self-control.     

Do energy prices converge across Russian regions?

This paper tests for price convergence in Russian energy markets from January 2003 to October 2010. Monthly energy prices for four energy products (diesel, gasoline, electricity and coal) for 83 Russian regions are drawn from Russia's statistical agency Rosstat. The study contributes to the existing literature by using the Exponential Smooth Auto-Regressive Augmented Dickey–Fuller unit root test in a panel setup, which encompasses cross-section dependence. We find that there are no fully integrated national energy markets in Russia, possibly due to the peripheral position of diverging regions, unbalanced distribution of energy reserves and limited cross-border transmission capacity.     

European Natural Gas Markets: Taking Stock and Looking Forward

Review of Industrial Organization - Recent natural gas price dynamics in Europe show convergence to the extent that locational price differentials approached transport tariffs, and hence, arbitrage...